51 pages • 1 hour read
Penelope DouglasBirthday Girl
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 19-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary: “Jordan”
Jordan waits excitedly for Pike to get home. When Pike does not turn up or answer his phone, she calls Dutch to find out his whereabouts. Dutch tells Jordan that Pike left the site two hours prior to get some beer. Jordan feels abandoned by Pike and like he pretended to be possessive about her to lure her into sex. She feels like now that he has had sex with her, Pike has no use for her. In anger, Jordan decides to do something she knows Pike would hate. She goes over to The Hook for the wet T-shirt contest.
Chapter 20 Summary: “Pike”
Pike had delayed coming home until he could gather courage for a serious conversation with Jordan. When he doesn’t find Jordan, he calls her. Jordan hangs up on him, just as Pike makes out that the wet T-shirt contest is being announced in the background. Pike plans to go to The Hook immediately, but just then, Cole comes in. Pike asks Cole why he quit work, and Cole tells him that he has found a new job, but the job is a surprise. Pike worries if the job is legal, and Cole laughs and says that the job is “as legal as it gets” (268). Cole takes Pike by surprise when he asks his father to get a tattoo with him the following week. Pike agrees.
At The Hook, Pike can see nervous girls lining up to go on stage. Men throng the stage with pitchers of water to throw at them. Pike finds the setup distasteful. He watches as women pull Jordan on stage, even as Jordan mouths “no.” They unzip her sweatshirt, and the men throw water on her. Jordan runs off the stage. Pike goes up to her and kisses her, pushing her out of The Hook. He apologizes to her, telling her that the reason he was late was that he was worrying about Cole. Pike fears that he will lose Cole if he learns about his relationship with Jordan. Pike confesses to Jordan that he is falling in love with her and kisses her again. An old acquaintance spots them together, but Pike does not care. When he and Jordan get into the truck, he teases her for being a good girl since she clearly did not want to participate in the wet T-shirt contest. Jordan resents being called a square.
At home, Jordan locks herself in her room and FaceTimes Pike as she takes off her clothes and touches herself. Overcome by desire for her, Pike bangs at her door, but she does not open it. She texts Pike that he should not masturbate.
Chapter 21 Summary: “Jordan”
Pike leaves while Jordan is asleep the next morning. Later, she gets a call from Dutch asking her if she knows why Pike is in a foul mood. Jordan is amused; she knows that Pike is acting up because he’s frustrated. When Pike gets home, he grabs Jordan, and they have sex. Cam eventually walks in, and the two break apart. Pike goes to the backyard to grill hot dogs for dinner. Cam can tell that Jordan has slept with Pike and teases her about it. She also warns her sister not to get her hopes up, as Jordan’s relationship with Pike may just be an affair. As Cam drives off, Jordan notes to herself that her hopes are already sky high.
Chapter 22 Summary: “Jordan”
Pike and Jordan begin a relationship. One day, Jordan returns from her summer class and finds Dutch at home. She makes an innuendo about her relationship with Pike to Dutch, and Pike follows her upstairs to gently chide her. They get into Pike’s shower and have sex. Dutch comes up to tell Pike that Lindsay has been calling on his phone. Pike tries to hide Jordan, but Dutch can see her clothes discarded outside the shower. Jordan worries that Dutch now knows about her and Pike.
That night, Pike and Jordan talk in bed. Jordan envies Pike for having himself figured out, but Pike tells her that she also knows her mind. She just does not allow herself to trust her gut because she has been undermined by her parents and her past boyfriends. He calls her incredible. Pike, for his part, envies Jordan for being young and having choices ahead of her. As they get intimate, Pike gets a call from Cole. After Pike hangs up, he tells Jordan that they have a big problem. Cole wants to move in, along with Lindsay.
Chapter 23 Summary: “Pike”
Lindsay and Cole move in with Pike temporarily since the storm windows in Lindsay’s apartment are being replaced. Cole has been living with his mother. Since Lindsay refuses to sleep on the couch, Pike is forced to give her the third bedroom. Pike does not want anyone to know that he and Jordan now share a bedroom; therefore, Cole and Jordan end up sharing a room. Pike is unhappy about this and wants to fight with Jordan when she agrees to the plan.
Later that night, Lindsay comes to Pike’s room and propositions him. Pike tells her he does not want to have sex with her. Lindsay tells Pike that she has been thinking lately that they should get back together. They are both more mature now and might be able to make a relationship work if Lindsay moves in for good. Pike suspects that Lindsay wants him to support her financially and rejects her offer. He walks out, angry with himself for not being able to own up to his relationship with Jordan. He then looks outside and spots Jordan by the pool. He goes over to her and asks her if she had sex with Cole. Jordan retorts that if Pike is so concerned about her, he should make their relationship public. Pike tells her that he is afraid that telling Cole would ruin his relationship with his son. If his relationship with Jordan turns out to be temporary, he would have destroyed things with Cole for nothing. A hurt Jordan walks away, telling Pike that Cam was right. Jordan should never have gotten her hopes up. Jordan now feels absolutely nothing for him.
Chapter 24 Summary: “Jordan”
At Grounders, Shel suspects that something is off with the sad-looking Jordan. She asks Jordan to make herself a sandwich and get some rest. Jordan gets into her car—which Pike has fixed—and goes to Pike’s house to gather her things. She plans to move out. At the house, Cole is having a party. Jay McCabe corners Jordan in the kitchen. When he lewdly propositions her, Jordan tells him that she would never sleep with him again since the sex they had was so terrible. Jay backs off when he sees a pair of scissors in Jordan’s hands.
Pike comes into the kitchen and pleads with Jordan to stay with him. He is conflicted about making their relationship known, but he cannot let her go. Jordan asks Pike if he loves her, but he says nothing. Just then, Jay reenters the kitchen. He sees Jordan and Pike standing close to each other and taunts Jordan. Pike lunges at Jay, and they smash out into the porch. When Cole rushes to the two fighting men, Jay begins to say lewd things about Pike and Jordan. Cole punches Jay and asks him to leave. Cole turns to Pike and Jordan in disbelief and walks away. Jordan leaves too, hurt that Pike did not tell Cole the truth.
Jordan goes over to Cam’s and texts Cole to apologize about her relationship with Pike. When Cole texts asking if Jordan loves Pike, she turns off her phone. At work, Jordan confesses her problems to Shel. Shel gives Jordan some money and suggests that she leave town for a bit to clear her head. Shel can sense that Pike is the first man Jordan has truly loved, which is why she will need time to get over him. If Jordan survives this heartbreak, she will emerge stronger.
Chapters 19-24 Analysis
This section focuses on the obstacles in Pike and Jordan’s love story. Now that their relationship has been consummated, the focus must shift to the hurdles and challenges in their being together. In a classic romance narrative, the lovers must separate and pine for each other before they reunite, the separation proving their love. Chapters 18-24 build up to that separation and reunion. The barriers in Pike and Jordan’s path include Pike’s fear of losing Cole, Cole’s disapproval of Pike and Jordan’s relationship, the censure of the larger world, and the individual temperaments of Pike and Jordan. As the couple overcome these obstacles one by one, the novel showcases The Ability of Love to Conquer All.
Dutch, Lindsay, and even the acquaintance who spots Pike kissing Jordan in the street represent the larger world. To these outsiders, the relationship is inappropriate at best and squalid at worst. Pike often fears judgment; being the older partner in the couple, he knows that he might come across as predatory. For Jordan, fear of abandonment is a major obstacle. When Pike does not show up in time for dinner the day after they have sex, Jordan assumes that Pike is done with her and decides to participate in the wet T-shirt contest to punish him.
The T-shirt contest shows how Pike is a flawed character. He realizes that the idea of such a contest is sexist and exploitative. However, he does not blame structural sexism for the practice; instead, he judges women for participating, describing the contestants as “straddling the floor as they shake their asses for the roaring crowd” (271). Pike does not incriminate the men ogling the young participants. For Pike, the fact that Jordan does not enjoy her brief stint in the contest marks her as virtuous and innocent. Satisfied that she is not like the other girls on the stage, he immediately kisses her.
Subsequently, Jordan reclaims her power and sexuality. Being a strong female lead, Jordan must emphasize to Pike that she alone controls her body and sexual behavior. She puts on a show for Pike at home but does not allow him to touch her. She revels in her power over Pike, refuses to open the door to him, and even instructs him not to masturbate. Thus, she reclaims her sexual agency. The sequence establishes that, though much younger than Pike, Jordan is a grown woman with a mind of her own.
The novel continues to play on the motif of Jordan and Pike as mirror images of each other, often using parallels to reinforce this point. Earlier in the text, Jordan refuses to make love to Cole. Here, Pike says no to Lindsay. Thus, both lovers are tempted and refuse temptation, proving their fidelity to each other.
Lindsay has few redeeming features. She repeatedly sexually propositions an unwilling Pike and indicates that she wants a relationship with him so that he can support her financially. She is juxtaposed with the hardworking and responsible Jordan. Pike reflects that he would never want to be with Lindsay because “she doesn’t even compare to what [he’s] had the past few weeks” (307). Women in the text often exist to highlight Jordan’s virtue and goodness. This is done through color symbolism: Lindsay wears a red nightie, red being the color of sex and seduction, and Jordan is always dressed in girlish pink, reflecting her innocence. When Jordan does wear red, it is in the form of innerwear, such as a red G-string. This suggests that Jordan’s sexuality is private, compared to that of the flagrant Lindsay.
Pike states that Jordan’s appeal for him is linked with her youth. The text suggests this via Pike’s descriptions of Jordan’s beauty and desirability. Pike often focuses on Jordan’s taut, smooth skin; her slim body; and other markers of youth. When Lindsay gets in bed with Pike, he thinks that she is Jordan before realizing that the leg he feels “doesn’t have the same curves and tone [he’s] grown to crave every day” (306). This suggests that he compares Lindsay’s age unfavorably with Jordan’s youthful beauty. Pike falls for Jordan not despite her youth but because of it. Though the text does not judge Pike for his choices, readers may find them problematic.
This section ends with Jordan and Pike’s separation. It is a cliffhanger moment, ratcheting up tension. When Pike tells Jordan that he should have kept his hands off her, she interprets his words as implying that she’s not worth it. Meanwhile, Pike believes that when Jordan gets back to college in two months, she will be meeting younger, more educated men and might not want him anymore. The miscommunication between the two is an example of how lovers in romance are separated by a misunderstanding. Hurt, Jordan walks out, telling Pike that she feels nothing for him.
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